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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T05:26:37+00:00

Imagine a schema as such. NOTE TABLE: NoteID, Note, DetailedTaskID, ….. DETAILED TASK TABLE:

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Imagine a schema as such.

NOTE TABLE:            NoteID, Note, DetailedTaskID, .....

DETAILED TASK TABLE:   DetailedTaskID, WorkOrderID, .....

WORKORDER TABLE:       WorkOrderID, ProjectID, .....

PROJECT TABLE:         ProjectID, .....

Now with this schema lets say I want to retrieve all notes that are associated to a specific project I end up with quite a number of joins.

IE: Note JOIN DetailedTask JOIN WorkOrder JOIN Project

So my question is this, when (if ever) is it appropriate to add a “shortcut” column for a table (in this case ProjectID)?

So basically changing the note table to this: NoteID, Note, DetailedTaskID, ProjectID

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Short answer: Never, ever, ever.

    Longer answer: Only when:

    1. You’ve determined that the performance of the JOINs is unacceptable (which is rarely true).

    2. You’ve genuinely exhausted all less dangerous alternatives.

    3. You are willing to absorb the extra work involved in keeping the redundant, de-normalized information in sync

    4. You are willing to accept the fact that it then becomes technically possible for your database to return incorrect results if you ever fail to keep things synced up.

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